Posted!

Join the Conversation

Comments

Welcome to our new and improved comments, which are for subscribers only.
This is a test to see whether we can improve the experience for you.
You do not need a Facebook profile to participate.

You will need to register before adding a comment.
Typed comments will be lost if you are not logged in.

Please be polite.
It's OK to disagree with someone's ideas, but personal attacks, insults, threats, hate speech, advocating violence and other violations can result in a ban.
If you see comments in violation of our community guidelines, please report them.

While some infrastructure problems are hard to ignore, like the pothole-riddled Michigan roads, most remain invisible until a large-scale crisis erupts. Consider two recent examples: the Flint water crisis that made international headlines, and the massive sinkhole that opened last month after an 11-feet-in-diameter sewage line collapsed 60 feet beneath Fraser, just north of Detroit. Out of sight, out of mind.

Michigan’s infrastructure is an interconnected network of thousands of miles of storm water and waste water sewers, collection and treatment systems, hundreds of thousands of miles of roads and bridges, about 2,500 dams and 1,390 community drinking water systems.

These are the systems that connect to the kitchens and bathrooms in our homes. They give us clean water for drinking, cooking and bathing. They keep E.coli and other toxins out of Michigan’s rivers and lakes. They enable us to drive safely to work, home and recreation. They protect our roads, highways and basements from catastrophic floods.

But Michigan’s infrastructure is alarmingly old. In fact in many parts of Michigan, the water you use every day to shower or drink likely flows through an infrastructure system that is 50 to 100 years old. Some Michigan infrastructure systems date back to the late 1800s.

For decades, Michigan at all levels of government and community has failed to plan for and fund the state’s massive unmet infrastructure needs. The results:

In a “report card” prepared by the American Society of Civil Engineers, Michigan’s infrastructure received a “D” grade.

Last month, the 21st Century Infrastructure Commission, made up of business and community leaders from across the state, estimated that Michigan needs to invest $4 billion more every year for decades to meet current infrastructure needs.

The Flint water crisis, the Fraser sinkhole, nearly 100 beach and river closings across the state every summer, millions of gallons of sewage spilling into Michigan’s lakes and rivers every year from Traverse City to Gaylord to Kalamazoo to Sault Ste. Marie, the worst roads in the nation, and more.

Every day, members of the Michigan Infrastructure & Transportation Association are literally working in the trenches, seeing firsthand the state’s unmet infrastructure needs. Michigan citizens need to be aware too, which is why we’ve launched an infrastructure awareness campaign called FixMIState. On the FixMIState.org website, you’ll find:

• The most current studies and data available on the scope of Michigan’s unmet infrastructure problems and what it will take to fix them.

Someday, Michigan’s elected leaders are going to have to fix our state’s infrastructure. As Michigan citizens, we can move our politicians to action by becoming aware, raising our voices and joining the conversation.

Michael Nystrom is executive vice president of the Michigan Infrastructure & Transportation Association.

Michigan’s infrastructure problem belongs to all of us. Learn more at FixMIState.org.